Dear alumni/ae and friends,
In the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Luke, the disciples of John the Baptist are dispatched to Jesus to ask a simple question: “are you the one?” Was this Jesus of Nazareth actually the Messiah, or should these followers expect someone else?
I often wonder how we would answer that question, if asked of each of us in our vocational callings:
Are you the one to bring good news to the captives?
Are you the one to bring clean water to those who need it?
Are you the one to take a risk in your privilege and comfort to minister to the stranger, the lost, and the lonely?
Are you the one who works to meet the material needs of others so that all may have a more abundant life?
Are you the one, who even in your moments of doubt and unbelief, remains steadfast in the knowledge that God honors God’s promises?
This pericope in Luke is calling us all to an examined life and an examined faith. It affirms a thinking faith which probes, questions, asks, and interrogates. There is no question that we cannot ask of the Divine One.
As a new academic year begins, we must ask ourselves: how will the world know what and in whom we believe? Through both word and deed, we must love as God loves.
Best,
Yolanda Pierce
Dean
Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair
Professor of Religion & Literature
